Recap, Photos & Video: St. Vincent Brings All Born Screaming Tour To Boston

St. Vincent kicked off her 2024 East Coast run at Boston’s MGM Music Hall At Fenway last night with a career-spanning set with most of the focus on her latest album All Born Screaming.

“Reckless” began the show with Annie Clark only seen as a silhouette, while the band played in the dark. It felt like the whole sequence was a reintroduction to the audience after her last tour being the Candy Darling persona.

We then got a one-two punch of MASSEDUCTION tracks with “Fear the Future” and “Los Ageless.” While there wasn’t as much guitar work from Annie on her previous tour, there was an abundance of it from her at the show. “Sweetest Fruit,” “Surgeon,” and “Cheerleader” stood out as a masterclass in soloing with the latter working her up so much it felt like she was going to smash her guitar at the end of it, but instead there was a fantastic drum solo by Mark Guiliana.

Of course there were some theatrics, as every St. Vincent tour has had some. This tour includes moveable arches, a videographer moving about onstage with what he’s shooting being projected on the screens behind the band, and various dance moves by Annie, with some having been used in past tours and some being new.

“Broken Man” saw her moving wildly around the stage like the music video released earlier this year. “Candy Darling” had her singing in one of the moving arches while guitarist Jason Falkner and bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl joined in on the theatrics a bit by leaning on the outside of the arch accompanying her vocally. The light show was also impressive all night, adding so much depth to the experience as a whole with various hues bathing both the stage and the crowd.

Some of her catalog got slight reworkings, and while they didn’t always work you cannot fault St. Vincent for trying something new with older material. The same can be said for some of the songs off of All Born Screaming. It might take some time for the reworkings and new songs to click with an audience, but once they do they might become fan favorites.

Clark was quite talkative throughout the show. First she went through various suburbs of Boston to see where everyone came from. Then she spoke about having gone to Berklee, but not graduated, and warned students who might be there not to study music so much it becomes less fun.

She also was quite earnest at one point saying how much live music means to her and how short life is and that both are so miraculous that if we’re going to do them we should do them right. It was a beautiful sentiment that got a lot of cheers from the crowd.

After a lengthy Bruce Springsteen-esque introduction of her five piece band, Annie sat on the shoulders of one of her security guards and sang “New York” from the front rail of the audience. From there the set ended with a rocking “Sugarboy” and the title track to the tour and album “All Born Screaming.”

A one-song encore of “Somebody Like Me” saw only Annie and keyboard and synthesizer wiz Rachel Eckroth on stage. With a wave goodbye and thank you, Annie pranced off the stage into the night as the crowd cheered for more.

Photos by Bryan Lasky